Category Archives: Cape

The family of birds is gone, gone, gone. It happened so suddenly. They adjusted to their new location after the first one crashed; the babies continued to grow quickly and started flapping their wings while still in the nest. And then they were gone.

The mama and papa still fly around the general area, with insects and seeds in their mouths. The parents sit on the stone sculptures and bushes, but they don’t go into the nest. They look as shocked as we do about the kids having left home.

Our cat, Bella, looks out the slider door with the most forlorn look on her face. She’ll whimper, then glance towards us for an answer: Where’d they go?

I did take a walk around the yard to see if I could make any astute observations about their whereabouts. No luck. My lack of success with Louis Agassiz’s principle, “Study nature, not books.” led me straight to Google. I learned that the young flyers do not return to the nest, but are still fed by mom and dad in nearby trees. And I also read that the female starts to lay a second clutch of eggs within a few days after the first brood leaves. So much for enjoying or converting the spare room. The young eventually become more independent, find food and feed themselves, but continue to live within the parents’ territory, but not the nest.

I enjoyed being part of this whole process and until today didn’t even know what kind of birds these are. Labeling and pigeon holing are not my forte. Thanks to Mass Audubon (http://www.massaudubon.org/birdatlas/bba1/index.php?search=yes&id=99), I think they’re Eastern Phoebe, maybe, kinda, sorta. This is the third or fourth year that they’ve returned to the same spot. Fingers crossed for a second brood. Maybe I’ll even be able to take some pictures without disturbing them. I do want them back.

We’ve had this cute little bird’s nest filled with a momma and daddy, then four eggs, then four baby birds here at the Cape. They built the nest under the deck for protection and on top of a spotlight fixture for stability—or maybe it was the first place they found with a vacancy. Who knows?

Every day David and I check them out; I think they check us out too. We see the parents sit with the kids, run out to get food, cart it back, and we watch the little beaks open up to be fed. The parents fly, but the babies are big feathery fur balls with fluffy wings that don’t do much. Our cat, Bella, watches through the glass slider, in awe. She doesn’t go outside, and the birds don’t come inside; both make noise at each other.

This afternoon when I went to my studio, which is right near the nest, I noticed something was different. The nest was upside down on the ground; the mama and papa birds were squawking and all a flutter. I ended up yelling to David, “Bird Nest Down”—he must have thought I’d been drinking. In the meantime, I’m trying to remember what I learned in Girl Scouts fifty three years ago about fallen bird nests and bird babies on the ground. All I could remember is that we weren’t supposed to touch them with our hands because then they get “human cooties” and the bird mama won’t like the babies any more. Oh my god, that would be so horrible!

We grabbed clean garden gloves, David picked up the nest and placed it in a spot that was more stable and yet still close to the original home. Then he picked up the little fur ball babies and cuddled them together in their nest. The mama and papa bird buzz bombed him and created quite a whirlwind. David was super quiet and very calm; I was inside, bouncing off the walls. He gently kept his gloved hands (no Michael Jackson imagery, please) over the nest to calm them down. Then he walked away, and we watched from the window trying not to distract the birds in any way.

Would the parents return to the newly relocated nest with their babies, or would they take off for Provincetown or Foxwoods? We waited. I kept wanting to feed them; David said food was not the answer. I replied in earnest, “Shit, that’s the only answer I have right now.” We let them be; it almost killed me to do nothing but watch and let nature take its course. Within minutes both parents did fly-bys of the new location but didn’t stop to console or rescue the chicks. A few minutes later, they got closer and closer until they eventually visited the nest and checked in with the traumatized kids. Soon they were ferrying food to the little ones. Three little heads are now popping up, the fourth one is underneath, still cuddling. I don’t know if I can stand so much excitement in one afternoon. There are lessons to be learned here, but I’m too riled up right now to figure out what they are.

When my kids were little, crossing the Bourne Bridge meant counting the bridge lights and looking for boats in the canal. To me, crossing the bridge and arriving on the Cape meant that my shoulders finally unattached themselves from my ears, and the muscles in my neck relaxed. I know that geography shouldn’t determine my attitude or disposition, but the Cape does.

It slows me down and allows me to see what I often miss in my standard busyness. I’ll have a leisurely second cup of coffee in the morning and wait two weeks before changing the bed linens.  I enjoy the imperfections in my daily routine instead of clutching and fretting over them.  There are weeds on my front yard; some of them have really pretty flowers.  My dinner plates are purposely mismatched, all somewhat white, all different shapes. I don’t plan my meals ahead of time; I go to the fish market and ask them what I shouldn’t leave without buying.  They never steer me wrong.  And I do eat the most outrageously delicious bread pudding with whiskey sauce at Pie in The Sky, and I don’t care if it’s realllllllly off my paleo/no carb/no sugar diet.

Before I go to sleep, I take a quick look at the night sky from our deck.  There are no streetlights, no city beams to disturb this universe.  I finally know which way is north, south, east and west—something I’ve never managed to learn in suburbia. The peepers croak the weirdest tunes that make me smile—I know what they’re doing. And every once in a while I’ll get up early enough to hear the bird chorus; it starts off with a single voice, reaches a delightful group crescendo, and then tamps down to a tweet. The best kind of tweet in the world is not limited by 144 characters, and I appreciate it here at the Cape.

There is something about living near the sea. The winds are stronger. The thunder rattles my bones. Trees are gnarly, and rocks are more abundant. The combination of sun and sand heals everything. It’s brighter, darker and on the edge. I love it.